QUESTIONNAIRE TO SEE IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM
Try to answer each question with a simple yes or no and write down your answers.
- Do you get more breathless doing things than you did a year ago?
- Have you had a worrisome cough that has lasted a long time?
- Do your lungs produce a lot of phlegm (sometimes called sputum or mucus)?
- Does it worry you when you get breathless? Does it trouble you?
- If you do bring up phlegm quite often is it milky white, grey, yellow, or green?
- Do you snore during the night and feel tired in the morning?
- Has anyone said to you that your breathing sounds noisy?
- Have you often noticed blood in your phlegm (this may be red or brown)?
- If you bend forward and say lean on a table, does this improve your breathing?
- Have you smoked regularly for over fifteen years and never seen a doctor?
- Is there a history of lung problems in your family?
- Check your lips and under your finger nails do they have a blue tinge?
- How about your ankles? Do you often get swollen ankles?
- When you breathe out do you tend to purse your lips?
- Do you feel breathless in the morning when getting dressed?
- Have you lost weight recently for no particular reason?
- When you breathe do you use your neck muscles? They may be visible in your neck when you are slightly breathless.
If you have answered yes to any of these questions, please make an appointment with your GP. It may be nothing - perhaps you are just overweight, stressed, and underweight who knows? But on the other hand it could be something to do with your lungs or heart. However, if you are feeling breathless, have swollen ankles or worrisome cough and the GP shrugs his shoulders and says "nothing to worry about or it will clear up in time" or "its just one of those things". ASK FOR A SECOND OPINION. It is your right and nobody will think less of you. Surgeries have a duty of care for their patients and they will take your complaint or demands for a second opinion very seriously. It is in their interests too because otherwise they will lose patients! The times have changed. In the past it would have been insulting to ask for a second opinion but now itis quite acceptable. You will not be penalised.I didnt ask for a second opinion and I was stupid and it cost me nearly 4 years ofdepression and being housebound and of course at the time, my marriage.I also will die earlier as a consequence. So dont be like memake an appointment or change your GP if you get a negative response, especially if you answered yes to any of the above questions.
If you have some money say £400 you could always make an arrangement with BUPA or similar to have a total medical examination or for even less (around £75 some surgeries will do it was well) but if you do that insist on a spirometer test for COPD. There are also plans to have voluntary health "MoT" and I hope you will take advantage of this whether at Tesco or your GP - it will be free.
AND PLEASE, PLEASE STOP SMOKING BUT MORE ABOUT THAT LATER.